Knicks Go goes better around two turns than one.

Fourth in a pair of major one-turn races in February and June, Knicks Go returned to his dominating best Friday night in Iowa, winning the Prairie Meadows Cornhusker, a two-turn, 1 1/8-mile race, by 10 ½ lengths.

Knicks Go moved into the barn of trainer Brad Cox during 2020 and since then has won four two-turn starts, including the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile and the nine-furlong, Grade 1 Pegasus World Cup Invitational, by a combined 35 ½ lengths. His method is simple: Go to the front and challenge anyone to stick with him.

That has worked to devastating effect in two-turn routes, but in the Saudi Cup, a one-turn, nine-furlong race on Feb. 20, he battled front-end foe Charlatan before fading to finish fourth. And in the June 5 Metropolitan Stakes, a one-turn mile and his first race after the Saudi trip, he led and was overtaken coming off the turn while offering little resistance.

Knicks Go raced on Lasix in the Cornhusker but won without it in the BC Dirt Mile and the Pegasus. He has a high cruising speed and runs the second turn aggressively, leaving the chasing horses reeling. Friday, that was second choice Last Judgement, another front-running type who was sent out of the gate and challenged Knicks Go into the first turn before ceding the lead to the favorite. Knicks Go and jockey Joel Rosario floated through a half mile in 47.03 and zipped around the second bend as Last Judgement came under a ride. Rosario did little work through the final quarter mile as Knicks Go widened steadily, stopping the timer in 1:47.33 over a fast track, one of the faster Cornhusker times on a night when the surface wasn’t especially glib.

As Knicks Go ($3.40) galloped home, Last Judgement held on by a half-length over Prairie-loving Rated R Superstar. Modernist, the 3-1 second choice, completed the course but jogged across the finish some 40 lengths behind fifth-place Dinar. Drifting West was scratched, leaving a field of six.

Five-year-old Knicks Go, who made his first six starts for trainer Ben Colebrook and is owned by the Korea Racing Authority, is a 5-year-old horse by Paynter out of Kosmo’s Buddy, by Outflanker, a distinctly blue-collar pedigree. Cox said he sent the horse to Iowa after the Met Mile because Knicks Go was acting like he was ready to race, but Cox also wanted confirmation he still had the same horse who ran so brilliantly at Keeneland last fall. The BC Dirt Mile around two turns is made to order for an in-form Knicks Go, and the horse showed his connections on Friday at Prairie Meadows that they can look forward to a November trip to Del Mar.